Level & Mission Designer

Post-Mortem

Working on re[Mod] this semester has been an incredible experience. I couldn’t have asked for a better team and I think together, we made a really exciting game. Now, it’s time to take a look back at this semester and consider, what we did right, what we did wrong, and what we learned along the way.

The Good

We were very fortunate this semester to have such a smooth pre-production process. We were able to quickly solidify our core systems and game loop early to continue iterating on them throughout the semester based on all the incredibly helpful feedback we were given along the way. As a team, our dynamic works really well. I have to admit, I was scared starting Capstone because I had never worked on a production team with any of my new teammates before; however, my fears were almost immediately subsided. It was clear I was going to be working with passionate professionals.

The Bad

Shooters are not my forte. Acting as Lead Designer on this game was a significant challenge for me because I have never been good at first person shooters. I LOVE them, but I’m terrible at them. I’ve never taken the time to learn the techniques or look at the design of these games in close enough detail before this semester. I had to take a lot of time looking into other FPS games as reference. I wish I had done even more of that. After receiving the majority our professors’ feedback it was clear that we still have to nail down the intended FPS experience. It’s a difficult genre to enter, but we’re determined to get it right.

The Lesson

I think the most important lesson that I learned over the course of this semester is that there is always room for improvement, but there isn’t always time. I think looking back at this semester, we could have spent less time trying to think of more weapon parts and new mechanics, and more time making sure the features that we had implemented felt REALLY good. I learned that in an FPS game, the gunplay is the most important part, no matter what new systems you through into the mix. Even though we introduced an innovative new mechanic to the competitive FPS scene, it’s still an FPS and players expect it to play like one. Our first priority next semester will be to make sure we can deliver that experience, and then, we move on from there. I can’t wait to get started.